Chapter V (4)

"_Dec. 31_. I have written nothing for a fortnight. Do not ask me why. There are times when we cannot speak, things of which we can say nothing. Christmas is come--that beautiful fete which I love the most, which brings me as much joy as the shepherds of Bethlehem. Truly our whole soul sings at the coming of the Lord, which is announced to us on all sides by hymns and by the pretty _nadalet_. [Footnote 49] Nothing in Paris can give an idea of what Christmas is. You have not even midnight mass. [Footnote 50] We all went to it, papa at our head, on a most charming night. There is no sky more beautiful than that of midnight: it was such that papa kept putting his head out of his cloak to look at it. The earth was white with frost, but we were not cold, and, beside, the air around us was warmed by the lighted fagots that our servants carried to light us. It was charming, I assure you, and I wish I could have seen you sliding along with us toward the church on the road, bordered with little white shrubs, as if they were flowering. The frost makes such pretty flowers! We saw one wreath so pretty that we wanted to make it a bouquet for the Blessed Sacrament, but it melted in our hands; all flowers last so short a time. I very much regretted my bouquet; it was so sad to see it melt drop by drop. I slept at the presbytery. The cure's good sister kept me, and gave me an excellent _reveillon_ of hot milk." Then, again, the grave part of her nature prevails, and she continues:

[Footnote 49: A particular way of ringing the bells during the
fifteen days which precede the feast of Christmas, called in _patois
nodal_.]

[Footnote 50: Since the period at which Mdlle. de Guerin wrote,
midnight mass has been resumed in Paris.]

"These are, then, my last thoughts; for I shall write nothing more this year; in a few hours it will be over, and we shall have begun a new year. Oh, how quickly time passes! Alas, alas, can I say that I regret it? No, my God, I do not regret time, or anything that it brings; it is not worth while to throw our affections into its stream. But empty, useless days, lost for heaven, this causes me regret as I look back on life. Dearest, where shall I be at this day, at this hour, at this minute, next year? Will it be here, elsewhere; here below, or above? God only knows; I am before the door of the future, resigned to all that can come forth from it. To-morrow I will pray for your happiness, for papa, Mimi, Eran [her other brother and sister], and all those whom I love. It is the day for presents; I will take mine from heaven. I draw all from thence, for truly there are few things which please me on earth. The longer I live, the less it pleases me, and I see the years pass by without sorrow, because they are but steps to the other world. Do not think it is any sorrow or trouble which makes me think this. I assure you it is not, but a home-sickness comes over my soul when I think of heaven. The clock strikes; it is the last I shall hear when writing to you."

The following is an account of what she called "a happy day:" "God be blessed for a day without sorrow. They are rare in this life, and my soul, more than others, is soon troubled. A word, a memory, the sound of a voice, a sad face, nothing, I know not what, often troubles the serenity of my soul--a little sky, darkened by the smallest cloud. This day I received a letter from Gabrielle, the cousin whom I love so for her sweetness and beautiful mind. I was uneasy about her health, which is so delicate, having heard nothing of her for more than a month. I was so pleased to see a letter from her, that I read it before my prayers. I was so eager to read it. To see a letter, and not to open it, is {218} an impossible thing. Another letter was given to me at Cahuzac. It was from Lili, another sweet friend, but quite withdrawn from the world; a pure soul--a soul like snow, from its purity so white that I am confounded when I look at it--a soul made for the eyes of God. I was coming from Cahuzac, very pleased with my letter, when I saw a little boy, weeping as if his heart were broken. He had broken his jug, and thought his father would beat him. I saw that with half a franc I could make him happy, so I took him to a shop, where we got another jug. Charles X. could not be happier if he regained his crown. Has it not been a beautiful day?"

Here is another instance of the way she had of beautifying the most simple incidents: "I must notice, in passing, an excellent supper that we have had--papa, Mimi, and I--at the corner of the kitchen-fire, with the servants: soup, some boiled potatoes, and a cake that I made yesterday with the dough from the bread. Our only servants were the dogs Lion, Wolf, and Tritly, who licked up the fragments. All our people were in church for the instruction which is given for confirmation;" and, she adds, "it was a charming meal."

The daily devotions of the month of Mary were very recently established when Eugenie wrote; she speaks thus of them: on one first of May when absent from home, she writes: "On this day, at this moment, my holy Mimi (a pet name for her sister) is on her knees before the little altar for the month of Mary in my room. Dear sister, I join myself to her, and find a chapel here also. They have given me for this purpose a room filled with flowers; in it I have made a church, and Marie, with her little girls, servants, shepherds, and all the household, assemble together every evening before the Blessed Virgin. They came at first only to look on, for they had never kept the month of Mary before. Some good will result to them of this new devotion, if it is only one idea, a single idea, of their Christian duties, which these people know so little of, and which we can teach them while amusing them. These popular devotions please me so, because they are so attractive in their form, and thereby offer such an easy method of instruction. By their means, salutary truths appear most pleasing, and all hearts are gained in the name of our Lady and of her sweet virtues. I love the month of Mary, and the other little devotions which the Church permits; which she blesses; which are born at the feet of the Faith like flowers at the mountain-foot."

Speaking of St. Teresa, to whom she had a great devotion, she says: "I am pleased to remember that, when I lost my mother, I went, like St. Teresa, to throw myself at the feet of the Blessed Virgin, and begged her to take me for her daughter." At another time she says: "To-day, very early, I went to Vieux, to visit the relics of the saints, and, in particular, those of St. Eugenie, my patron. I love pilgrimages, remnants of the ancient faith; but these are not the days for them; in the greater number of people the spirit for them is dead. However, if M. le Cure does not have this procession to Vieux, there will be discontent. Credulity abounds where faith disappears. We have, however, many good souls, worthy to please the saints, like Rose Drouille, who knows how to meditate, who has learnt so much from the rosary; then Francon de Gaillard and her daughter Jacquette, so recollected in church. This holy escort did not accompany me; I was alone with my good angel and Mimi. Mass heard, my prayers finished, I left with one hope more. I had come to ask something from St. Eugene? The saints are our brothers. If you were all-powerful, would you not give me all that I desired? This is what I was thinking of while invoking St. Eugene, who is also my patron. We have so little in this world, at least let us hope in the other."

Those who are not of the same faith as Eugenie de Guerin have not failed {219} to be attracted by the depth and ardor of her faith and piety. A writer in the _Cornhill Magazine_ observes, "The relation to the priest, the practice of confession assume, when she speaks of them, an aspect which is not that under which Exeter Hall knows them."

"In my leisure time I read a work of Leitniz, which delighted me by its catholicity and the pious things which I found in it--like this on confession:

"'I regard a pious, grave, and prudent confessor as a great instrument of God for the salvation of souls; for his counsels serve to direct our affections, to enlighten us about our faults, to make us avoid the occasions of sin, to dissipate our doubts, to raise up our broken spirit; finally, to cure or to mitigate all the maladies of the soul; and, if we can never find on earth anything more excellent than a faithful friend, what happiness is it not to find one who is obliged, by the inviolable law of a divine sacrament, to keep faith with us and to succor souls?'

"This celestial friend I have in M. Bories, and therefore the news of his departure has deeply affected me. I am sad with a sadness which makes the soul weep. I should not say this to any one else; they would not, perhaps, understand me, and would take it ill. In the world they know not what a confessor is--a man who is a friend of our soul, our most intimate confidant, our physician, our light, our teacher--a friend who binds us to him, and is bound to us; who gives us peace, who opens heaven to us, who speaks to us while we, kneeling, call him, like God, our father; and faith truly makes him God and father. When I am at his feet, I see nothing else in him than Jesus listening to Magdalen, and pardoning much because she has loved much. Confession is but an expansion of repentance in love."

Again she writes: "I have learnt that M. Bories is about to leave us-- this good and excellent father of my soul. Oh, how I regret him! What a loss it will be to me to lose this good guide of my conscience, of my heart, my mind, of my whole self, which God had confided to him, and which I had trusted to him with such perfect freedom! I am sad with the sadness which makes the soul weep. My God, in my desert to whom shall I have recourse? Who will sustain me in my spiritual weakness? who will lead me on to great sacrifices? It is in this last, above all, that I regret M. Bories. He knew what God had put into my heart. I needed his strength to follow it. The new cure cannot replace him; he is so young; then he appears so inexperienced, so undecided. It is necessary to be firm to draw a soul from the midst of the world, and to sustain it against the assaults of flesh and blood.

"It is Saturday--the day of pilgrimage to Cahuzac. I will go there; perhaps I shall come back more tranquil. God has always given me some blessing in that chapel, where I have left so many miseries... I was not mistaken in thinking that I should come back more tranquil. M. Bories is not going! How happy I am, and how thankful to God for this favor. It is such a great blessing to me to keep this good father, this good guide, this choice of God for my soul, as St. Francis de Sales expresses it.

"Confession is such a blessed thing, such a happiness for the Christian soul; a great good, and always greater in measure when we feel it to be so; and when the heart of the priest, into which we pour our sorrow, resembles that Divine Heart _which has loved us so much_. This is what attaches me to M. Bories; you will understand it."

Nevertheless, when the trial of parting with this beloved friend did come, at length, it was borne with gentle submission.

"Our pastor is come to see us. I have not said much to you about him. He is a simple and good man, knowing his duties well, and speaking better of God than of the world, which he knows little of. Therefore, he does not shine in conversation. {220} His conversation is ordinary, and those who do not know what the true spirit of a priest is would think little of him. He does good in the parish, for his gentleness wins souls. He is our father now. I find him young after M. Bories. I miss that strong and powerful teaching which strengthened me; but it is God who has taken it from me. Let us submit and walk like children, without looking at the hand which leads us."

Eugenie's life revolved round that of Maurice. No length of separation could weaken her affection, nor make her interest in his pursuits less engrossing. His letters, so few and so scanty, were treasured up and dwelt upon in many a lonely hour. She suffered with him, wept over his disappointments, and prayed for his return to the faith of his youth with all the earnestness of her soul. With exquisite tact she avoided preaching to him. It was rather by showing him what religion was to her that she strove to lead him back to its practice.

"_Holy Thursday_.--I have come back all fragrant from the chapel of moss, in the church where the Blessed Sacrament is reposing. It is a beautiful day when God wills to rest among the flowers and perfumes of the springtime. Mimi, Rose, and I made this _reposoir_, aided by M. le Cure. I thought, as we were doing it, of the supper-room, of that chamber well furnished, where Jesus willed to keep the pasch with his disciples, giving himself for the Lamb. Oh, what a gift! What can one say of the Eucharist? I know nothing to say. We adore; we possess; we live; we love. The soul is without words, and loses itself in an abyss of happiness. I thought of you among these ecstasies, and ardently desired to have you at my side, at the holy table, as I had three years ago."

Mademoiselle de Guerin occasionally composed; her brother was very anxious she should publish her productions, but she shrank from the responsibility. "St. Jean de Damas," she remarks, "was forbidden to write to any one, and for having composed some verses for a friend he was expelled from the convent. That seemed to me very severe; but one sees the wisdom of it, when, after supplication and much humility, the saint had been forgiven, he was ordered to write and to employ his talents in conquering the enemies of Jesus Christ. He was found strong enough to enter the lists when he had been stripped of pride. He wrote against the iconoclasts. Oh, if many illustrious writers had begun by a lesson of humility, they would not have made so many errors nor so many books. Pride has blinded them, and thus see the fruits which they produce, into how many errors they lead the erring. But this chapter on the science of evil is too wide for me. I should prefer saying that I have sewn a sheet. A sheet leads me to reflect, it will cover so many people, so many different slumbers--perhaps that of the tomb. Who knows if it will not be my shroud, and if these stitches which I make will not be unpicked by the worms? While I was sewing, papa told me that he had sent, without my knowledge, some of my verses to Bayssac, and I have seen the letter where M. de Bagne speaks of them and says they are very good. A little vanity came to me and fell into my sewing. Now I tell myself the thought of death is good to keep us from sin. It moderates joy, tempers sadness, makes us see that all which passes by us is transitory."

Again she writes: "Dear one, I would that I could see you pray like a good child of God. What would it cost you? Your soul is naturally loving, and prayer is nothing else but love; a love which spreads itself out into the soul as the water flows from the fountain."

******

"_Ash-Wednesday_.--Here I am, with ashes on my forehead and serious thoughts in my mind. This 'Remember thou art dust!' is terrible to me. I hear it all day long. I cannot banish {221} the thought of death, particularly in your room, where I no longer find you, where I saw you so ill, where I have sad memories both of your presence and your absence. One thing only is bright--the little medal of Our Lady, suspended over the head of your bed. It is still untarnished and in the same place where I put it to be your safeguard. I wish you knew, dearest, the pleasure I have in seeing it--the remembrances, the hopes, the secret thoughts that are connected with that holy image. I shall guard it as a relic; and, if ever you return to sleep in that little bed, you shall sleep again near the medal of the Blessed Virgin. Take from, me this confidence and love, not to a bit of metal, but to the image of the Mother of God. I should like to know, if in your new room I should see St. Teresa, who used to hang in your other room near the _benitier:_

'Ou toi, necessiteux
Defaillant, tu prenais l'aumone dans ce creux.'

You will no longer, I fear, seek alms there. Where will you seek them? Who can tell? Is the world in which you live rich enough for all your necessities? Maurice, if I could but make you understand one of these thoughts, breathe into you what I believe, and what I learn in pious books--those beautiful reflections of the Gospel--if I could see you a Christian, I would give life and all for that."

******

Maurice's absence was the great trial of Eugenie's life; but there were minor trials also, concerning the little things that make up the sum of our happiness. She suffered intensely and constantly from _ennui_. Her active, enterprising mind had not sufficient food to sustain it, and bravely did she fight against this constant depression and weariness.

A duller life than hers could hardly be found; she had literally "nothing to do." She had no society, for she lived at a distance from her friends. Sometimes the cure called, sometimes a priest from a neighboring parish, and then the monotonous days went on without a single incident. There was no outward sign of the struggle going on. Speaking of her father, she says: "A grave look makes him think there is some trouble, so I conceal the passing clouds from him; it is but right that he should only see and know my calm and serene side. A daughter should be gentle to her father. We ought to be to them something like the angels are to God."

Nor would she distract her thoughts by any means which might injure her soul. "I have scarcely read the author whose work you sent, though I admired him as I do M. Hugo; but these geniuses have blemishes which wound a woman's eye. I detest to meet with what I do not wish to see; and this makes me close so many books. I have had _Notre Dame de Paris_ under my hands a hundred times to-day; and the style, _Esmeralda_, and so many pretty things in it, tempt me, and say to me, 'Read--look.' I looked; I turned it over; but the stains here and there stopped me. I read no more, and contented myself with looking at the pictures." At another time, when she is staying at a "deserted house," rather duller than her own, she writes: "The devil tempted me just now in a little room, where I found a number of romances. 'Read a word,' he said to me; 'let us see that; look at this;' but the titles of the books displeased me. I am no longer tempted now, and will go only to change the books in this room, or rather to throw them into the fire."

There was one sovereign remedy for her ills, and she sought for it with fidelity, and reaped her reward.

"This morning I was suffering. Well, at present, I am calm; and this I owe to faith, simply to faith, to an act of faith. I can think of death and eternity without trouble, without alarm. Over a deep of sorrow there floats a divine calm, a serenity, which is the work of God only. In vain have I tried other things at a time like this; {222} nothing human comforts the soul, nothing human upholds it.

'A l'enfant il faut sa mere,
A mon ame il faut mon Dieu.'"

At another time of suffering she writes: "God only can console us when the heart is sorrowful: human helps are not enough; they sink beneath it, it is so weighed down by sorrow. The reed must have more than other reeds to lean on."

******

"To distract my thoughts, I have been turning over Lamartine, the dear poet. I love his hymn to the nightingale, and many other of his 'Harmonies' but they are far from having the effect on me that his 'Meditations' used to have. I was ravished and in ecstacy with them. I was but sixteen, and time changes many things. The great poet no longer makes my heart vibrate; to-day he has not even power to distract my thoughts. I must try something else, for I must not cherish _ennui_, which injures the soul. What can I do? It is not good for me to write, to communicate trouble to others. I will leave pen and ink. I know something better, for I have tried it a hundred times; it is prayer--prayer which calms me when I say to my soul before God, 'Why art thou sad, and wherefore art thou troubled?' I know not what he does in answering me, but it quiets me just like a weeping child when it sees its mother. The Divine compassion and tenderness is truly maternal toward us."

******

And, further on: "Now I have something better to do than write: I will go and pray. Oh, how I love prayer! I would that all the world knew how to pray. I would that children, and the old, and the poor, the afflicted, the sick in soul and body--all who live and suffer--could know the balm that prayer is. But I know not how to speak of these things. We cannot tell what is ineffable."

She had said once, as we have seen, that she would give life and all to see Maurice once more serving God. She had written to him thus, not carelessly indeed, but as we are too wont to write--not counting the cost, because we know not what the cost is. She wrote thus, and God took her at her word, and he asked from her not life, as she then meant it, but her life's life. First came the trial of a temporary estrangement. Her journal suddenly stops; she believed it wearied him, and, without a word of reproach, she silenced her eager pen. Maurice, however, declared she was mistaken, and she joyfully resumed her task with words which would evidence, if nothing else were left, us, the intense depth of her love for her brother. "I was in the wrong. So much the better; for I had feared it had been your fault." Then Maurice's health, which had always been delicate, began to fail, and her heart was tortured at the thought of him suffering, away from her loving care, unable to send her news of him.

"I have, been reading the epistle about the child raised to life by Elias. Oh, if I knew some prophet, some one who would give back life and health, I would go, like the Shunamite, and throw myself at his feet."

And again, most touchingly, she says: "A letter from Felicite, which tells me nothing better about you. When will those who know more write? If they knew how a woman's heart beats, they would have more pity."

Maurice recovered from these attacks, and in the autumn of 1836 married a young and pretty Creole lady. He had not the violent attachment as to the "Louise" of his early youth; but the union seemed a suitable one on both sides. One of Eugenie's brief visits to Paris was made for the purpose of being present at her brother's marriage. It was a romantic scene. It took place in the chapel of the old and quaint Abbaye aux Bois. The church was filled with brilliant and admiring friends. The bride and bridegroom, both so beautiful, knelt before the altar; the Pere Bugnet, who had {223} known Maurice as a boy, blessed the union. The gay procession passed from the church, and met a funeral cortege! It fell like an omen on Eugenie's heart. Six short months went by, and Eugenie was again summoned to Paris, to Maurice's sick-bed--his dying-bed it indeed was, but his sister's passionate love would not relinquish hope. The physicians, catching at a straw, prescribed native air, and the invalid caught at the proposal with feverish impatience. That eager longing sustained him through the long and terrible journey of twenty days; for, the moment he revived, he would be laid in the salon, and see the home-faces gathered round him. Then he was carried to his room, and soon the end came. At last Eugenie knew that he must go, and all the powers of her soul were gathered into that one prayer, that he might die at peace with God. Calmly she bent over him, and kissed the forehead, damp with the dews of death.

"Dearest, M. le Cure is coming, and you will confess. You have no difficulty in speaking to M. le Cure?" "Not at all," he answered. "You will prepare for confession, then?" He asked for his prayer-book, and had the prayers read to him.

When the priest came, he asked for more time to prepare. At last the cure was summoned.

"Never have I heard a confession better made," said the priest afterward. As he was leaving the room, Maurice called him back, and made a solemn retraction of the doctrines of M. de Lamennais. Then came the Viaticum and the last anointing. Life ebbed away; he pressed the hand of the cure, who was by him to the last, he kissed his crucifix, and died. Eugenie's prayer was heard. He died, but at home; a wanderer come back; an erring child, once more forgiven, resting on his Father's breast.

And he was gone!--"king of my heart! my other self!" as she had called him--and Eugenie was left behind. She had loved him too well for her eternal peace, and it was necessary that she should be purified in the crucible of suffering. Very gradually she parted from him; the gates of the tomb closed not on her love; slowly she uprooted the fibres of her nature which had been entwined in his. Her journal did not end, and she wrote still to him--to Maurice in heaven: "Oh, my beloved Maurice! Maurice, art thou far from me? hearest thou me? Sometimes I shed torrents of tears; then the soul is dried up. All my life will be a mourning one; my heart is desolate." Then, reproaching herself, she turns to her only consolation: "Do I not love thee, my God? only true and Eternal Love! It seems to me that I love thee as the fearful Peter, but not like John, who rested on thy heart--divine repose which I so need. What do I seek in creatures? To make a pillow of a human breast? Alas! I have seen how death can take that from us. Better to lean, Jesus, on thy crown of thorns.

******

"This day year, we went together to St. Sulpice, to the one o'clock mass. To-day I have been to Lentin in the rain, with bitter memories, in solitude. But, my soul, calm thyself with thy God, whom thou hast received to-day, in that little church. He is thy brother, thy friend, the well-beloved above all; whom thou canst never see die; who can never fail thee, in this world or the next. Let us console ourselves with this thought, that in God we shall find again all we have lost."

One great desire was, however, left to her; that of publishing the letters and writings of Maurice, and of winning for her beloved one the fame which she so despised for herself. A tribute to his memory appeared the year after his death, in the _Revue des deux Mondes_, from the brilliant pen of Madame Sand; but it was the source of more pain than pleasure to Eugenie. With the want of candor which is so often a characteristic of the class of writers to whom Madame Sand {224} belongs, she represented Maurice as a man totally without faith. Eugenie believed that he had never actually lost it, although it had been darkened and obscured; and she was certainly far more in his confidence than any of his friends.

For some time before his death he had gradually been returning to religious exercises; and, as we have seen, on his death-bed, he had most fully retracted and repented of whatever errors there had been in his life. But Madame Sand was not very likely to trouble herself about the dying moments of her friend, while it was another triumph to infidelity to let the world think this brilliant young man lived and died in its ranks.

"Madame Sand makes Maurice a skeptic, a great poet, like Byron, and it afflicts me to see the name of my brother--a name which was free from these lamentable errors--thus falsely represented to the world." And again: "Oh, Madame Sand is right when she says that his words are like the diamonds linked together, which make a diadem; or, rather, my Maurice was all one diamond. Blessed be those who estimated his price; blessed be the voice which praises him, which places him so high, with so much respect and enthusiasm! But on one point this voice is mistaken--when she says he had no faith. No; faith was not wanting in him. I proclaim it, and attest it by what I have seen and heard; by his prayers, his pious reading; by the sacraments he received; by all his Christian actions; by the death which opened life unto him--a death with his crucifix."

This article of Madame Sand only increased Eugenie's desire to vindicate her brother, by letting the world judge from his own writings and letters what Maurice really was. Many projects were set on foot for publishing this work. Rather than leave it undone, Eugenie would have undertaken it herself, though her broken spirit shrank more than ever from any sort of notoriety, or communication with the busy world outside her quiet home. But she would greatly have preferred the task should be accomplished by one of his friends; and much of her correspondence was devoted to the purpose. Time passed, and plan after plan fell to the ground. This last satisfaction was not to be hers. She was to see, as she thought, the name of her beloved one gradually fading away, and forgotten as years went on. To the very last drop she was to drain the cup of disappointment and loss. Her journal ceased, and its last sentence was, "Truly did the saint speak who said, 'Let us throw our hearts into eternity.'"

There are a few fragments and letters, which carry us on some years later; and in one of the last of these letters, dated 15th of June, 1845, we find these consoling words: "I have suffered; but God teaches us thus, and leads us to willingly place our hearts above. You are again in mourning, and I have felt your loss deeply. I mean the death of your poor brother. Alas! what is life but a continual separation? But you will meet in heaven, and there will be no more mourning nor tears; and there the society of saints will reward us for what we have suffered in the society of men. And, while waiting, there is nothing else to do than to humble one's self, as the Apostle says, 'under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in the time of visitation; casting all your care upon him, for he hath care of you.'"

These are almost her closing words; and thus we see God comforted her. Three years more passed, of which we have no record; and we cannot but deeply regret the determination of M. Trebutien not to give any account of her beyond her own words. As long as they lasted, they are indeed sufficient; but we would have fain followed her into the silence of those last years, and have seen the soul gradually passing to its rest. We would have liked to know if the friends she loved soothed her dying hours--whether M. Bories, with his "strong {225} and powerful words," was by her side in her last earthly struggle. But a veil falls over it all. We feel assured, as we close the volume, that whatever human means were wanting, the God she had faithfully served consoled his child to the last, and sustained her mortal weakness till she reposed in him. After her death, her heart's wish was fulfilled, and abundant honor has been rendered to Maurice de Guerin. Nay, more; for homage is ever given to the majesty of unselfish love; and from henceforth, if Maurice the poet shall be forgotten, Maurice the brother of Eugenie will never be. She has embalmed his memory with her deep and fond devotion; and she has left a living record of how, in the midst of a wearisome, an objectless, a monotonous life, a woman may find work to do, and doing it, like Eugenie, with all her might, leave behind her a track of light by which others may follow after her, encouraged and consoled. F.

------

THE BUILDING OF MOURNE.

A LEGEND OF THE BLACKWATER.

BY ROBERT D. JOYCE.

Rome, according to the old aphorism, was not built in a day. Neither was the old town of Mourne, although it was destroyed in a day, and made fit almost for the sowing of salt upon its foundations, by the great Lord of Thomond, Murrough of the Ferns, when he gathered around it his rakehelly kerns, as Spenser in his spleen called them, and his fierce galloglasses and roving hobbelers. But the present story has naught to do with the spoliation and burning of towns. Far different, indeed, was the founding of Mourne, to the story of the disastrous termination of its prosperity. You will look in vain to the histories for a succinct or circumstantial account of the building of this ancient town; but many a more famous city has its early annals involved in equal obscurity--Rome, for instance. What tangible fact can be laid hold of with regard to its early history, save the will-o'-the-wisp light emanating from the traditions of a more modern day? A cimmerian cloud of darkness overhangs its founding and youthful progress, through which the double-distilled microscopic eyes of the historian are unable to penetrate with any degree of certainty. Mourne, however, though it cannot boast of a long-written history, possesses an oral one of remarkable perspicuity and certainty. The men are on the spot who, with a mathematical precision worthy of Archimedes or Newton, will relate everything about it, from its foundation to its fall. The only darkness cast upon their most circumstantial history is the elysian cloud from their luxuriant dudheens, as they whiff away occasionally, and relate--

That there was long ago a certain Dhonal, a nobleman of the warlike race of Mac Caurha, who ruled over Duhallow, and the wild mountainous territories extending downward along the banks of the Blackwater. This nobleman, after a long rule of prosperity and peace, at length grew weary of inaction, and manufactured in his pugnacious brain some cause of mortal affront and complaint against a neighboring potentate, whose territory extended in a westerly direction on the opposite shore of the river. So he mustered his vassals with all imaginable speed, and prepared to set out for the domains of his foe on a foray of unusual ferocity and magnitude. Before departing from his castle, which stood some miles above Mallow, on the banks of the river, he held a long and confidential parley with his wife, in which he told her, if he were defeated or slain, and if the foe should cross the Blackwater to make reprisals, that she should hold out the fortress while one stone would stand upon another, and especially that she should guard their three young sons well, whom, he doubted not, whatever might happen, would one day gain prosperity and renown. After this, he set out on his expedition, at the head of a formidable array of turbulent kerns and marauding horsemen. But his neighbor was not a man to be caught sleeping; for, at the crossing of a ford near Kanturk, he attacked Dhonal, slew him in single combat, and put his followers to the sword, almost to a man. After this he crossed the Blackwater, laid waste the territories of the invader, and at length besieged the castle, where the widowed lady and her three sons had taken refuge. For a long time she held her own bravely against her enemy; but in the end the castle was taken by assault, and she and her three young sons narrowly escaped with their lives out into the wild recesses of the forest.

After wandering about for some time, the poor lady built a little hut of brambles on the shore of the Clydagh, near the spot where stand the ruins of the preceptory of Mourne, or Ballinamona, as it is sometimes called. Here she dwelt with her children for a long time, in want and misery. Her sons grew up without receiving any of those accomplishments befitting their birth, and gained their subsistence, like the children of the common people around, by tilling a little plot of land before their hut, and by the products of the chase in the surrounding forest. One day, as Diarmid, the eldest, with his bow and arrows ready for the chase, was crossing a narrow valley, he met a kern, one of the followers of the great lord who had slain his father. Now, neither Diarmid nor his brothers recollected who had killed their father, nor the high estate from which they had fallen, for their mother kept them carefully in ignorance of all, fearing that they might become known, and that their enemies would kill them also. So the kern and himself wended their way for some time together along the side of the valley. At length they started a deer from its bed in the green ferns. Each shot his arrow at the same moment, and each struck the deer, which ran downward for a short space, and at last fell dead beside the little stream in the bottom of the valley.

"The deer is mine!" said the strange kern, as they stood over its body.

"No!" answered Diarmid, "it is not. See! your arrow is only stickin' in the skin of his neck, an' mine is afther rattlin' into his heart, through an' through!"

"No matther," exclaimed the kern, with a menacing look. "I don't care how he kem by his death, but the deer I must have, body an' bones, whatever comes of it! Do you think sich a _sprissawn_ as you could keep me from it, an' I wantin' its darlin' carkiss for the table o' my lord, the Mac Donogh?"

Now Diarmid recollected that his mother and brothers were at the same time almost dying in their little hut for want of food. So without further parley he drew his long skian from its sheath.

"Very well," said he, "take it, if you're a man; but before it goes, my carkiss must lie stiff an' bloody in its place!"

The kern drew his skian at the word, and there, over the body of the fallen deer, ensued a combat stern and fierce, which at last resulted in Diarmid's plunging his skian through and through the body of his foe into the gritty sand beneath them.

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Diarmid then took the spear and other weapons of the dead kern, put the deer upon his broad shoulders, and marching off in triumph, soon gained his mother's little hut. There, after eating a comfortable meal, and telling his adventure, Diarmid began to lay down his future plans.

"Mother," he said, "the time is come at last when this little cabin is too small for me. I'm a man now, an' able to meet a man, body to body, as I met him to-day; so I'll brighten up my weapons, an' set off on my adventures, that I may gain renown in the wars. Donogh here, too, has the four bones of a man," continued he, turning to his second brother; "so let him prepare, an' we'll thramp off together as soon as we can, an' perhaps afther all we'd have a castle of our own, where you could reign in glory, as big an' grand as Queen Cleena o' the Crag!"

"Well, then," answered his mother, "if you must go, before you leave me, you and your brothers must hunt in the forest for a month, and bring in as much food as will do me and Rory here for a year and a day."

"But," said Rory, the youngest, or Roreen Shouragh, or the Lively, as he was called, in consequence of the 'cute and merry temperament of his mind--"but, Diarmid, you know I am now beyant fifteen years of age, an' so, if you go, I'll folly you to the worldt's end!"

"You presumptious little atomy of a barebones," answered his eldest brother, "if I only see the size of a thrush's ankle of you follyin' us on the road, I'll turn back an' bate that wiry an' freckled little carkiss o' yours into frog's jelly! So stay at home in pace an' quietness, an' perhaps when I come back I might give you a good purse o' goold to begin your forthin with."

"That for your mane an' ludiacrous purse o' goold!" exclaimed Roreen Shouragh, at the same time snapping his fingers in the face of his brother. "Arrah! do you hear him, mother? But never mind. Let us be off into the forest to-morrow, an' we'll see who'll bring home the most food before night!"

"Well," said his mother, "whether he stays at home or goes away, I fear he'll come to some bad end with that sharp tongue of his, and his wild capers."

"With all jonteel respect, mother," answered Shouragh again, "I mane to do no such thing. I think myself as good a hairo this minnit--because I have the sowl an' heart o' one as King Dathi, who was killed in some furrin place that I don't recklect the jography of, or as Con o' the Hundhert Battles, or as the best man amongst them, Fion himself--an' I'll do as great actions as any o' them yet!"

This grandiloquent boast of Roreen Shouragh's set his mother and brothers into a fit of laughter, from which they only recovered when it was time to retire to rest. In the morning the three brothers betook themselves to the forest, and at the fall of night returned with a great spoil of game. From morning till night they hunted thus every day for a month, at the end of which time Diarmid said that they had as much food stored in as would last his mother and Rory for a year and a day.

On a hot summer noon the two brothers left the little hut, with their mother's blessing on their heads, and set off on their adventures. After crossing a few valleys, they came at length to the shore of the Blackwater, and sat down in the shade of a huge oak-tree on the bank to rest themselves. Beneath them, in a clear, shady pool, a huge pike, with his voracious jaws ready for a plunge, was watching a merry little speckled trout, which in its turn was regarding with most affectionate eyes a bright blue fly, that was disporting overhead on the surface of the water. Suddenly the trout darted upward into the air, catching the ill-starred fly, but, in its return to the element beneath, unfortunately plumped itself into the Charybdis-like jaws of the villanous {228} pike, and was from that in one moment quietly deposited in his stomach.

"Look at that!" said Diarmid to his brother. "That's the way with a man that works an' watches everything with a keen eye. He'll have all in the end, just as the pike has both fly and throut--an' just as I have both fly, an' throut, an' pike!" continued he, giving his spear a quick dart into the deep pool, and then landing the luckless pike, transfixed through and through, upon the green bank. "That's the way to manage, and the divvle a betther sign o' good luck we could have in the beginning of our journey, than to get a good male so aisy!"

"Hooray!" exclaimed a voice behind them. "That's the way to manage most galliantly. What a nate dinner the thurminjous monsther will make for the three of us!" and on turning round, the two brothers beheld Roreen Shouragh, accoutred like themselves, and dancing with most exuberant delight at the feat beside them on the grass.

"An' so you have follied us afther all my warnin', you outragious little vagabone!" exclaimed Diarmid, making a wrathful dart at Roreen, who, however, eluding the grasp, ran and doubled hither and thither with the swiftness of a hare, around the trunks of the huge oak-trees on the shore. In vain Diarmid tried every ruse of the chase to catch him. Roreen Shouragh could not be captured. At length the elder brother, wearied out, returned to Donogh, who, during the chase, was tumbling about on the grass in convulsions of laughter.

"'Tis no use, Donogh," he said, "we must only let him come with us. He'll never go back. Come here, you aggravatin' young robber," continued he, calling out to Roreen, who was still dancing in defiance beneath a tree, some distance off--"come here, an' you'll get your dinner, an' may folly us if you wish."

Roreen knew that he might depend on the word of his brother. "I towld ye both," said he, coming up to the spot, "that I'd folly ye to the worldt's end; so let us have pace, an' I may do ye some service yet. But may I supplicate to know where ye're preamblin' to at present; for if ye sit down that way in every umberagious coolin' spot, as the song says, the divvle a much ye'll have for yeer pains in the ind?"

"I'll tell you then," answered Donogh, now recovered from his fit of laughing. "We're goin' off to Corrig Cleena, to see the Queen o' the Fairies, an' to ask her advice what to do so as to win wealth an' renown."

"'Tis aisier said than done," said Roreen, "to see Queen Cleena. But howsomdever, when we're afther devourin' this vouracious thief of a pike here, we'll peg off to the Corrig as swift as our gambadin'-sticks will carry us!"

After the meal the three brothers swam across the river, and proceeded on their way through the forest toward Corrig Cleena. On gaining the summit of a little height, a long, straight road extended before them.

On and on the straight road they went, till, turning up a narrow path in the forest, they beheld the great grey boulders of Corrig Cleena towering before them. They searched round its base several times for an entrance, but could find none. At length, as they were turning away in despair, they saw an extremely small, withered old atomy of a woman, clad all in sky blue, and sitting beside a clump of fairy thimbles, or foxgloves, that grew on a little knoll in front of the rock. They went up and accosted her:

"Could you tell us, ould woman," asked Diarmid, "how we can enter the Corrig? We want to speak to the queen."

"Ould woman, inagh!" answered the little atomy in a towering passion. "How daar you call me an ould woman, you vagabone? Off wid you--thramp, I say, for if you sted there till your legs would root in the ground, you'd get no information from me!"

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"Be aisy, mother," said Donogh, in a soothing voice; "sure, if you can tell us, you may as well serve us so far, an' we'll throuble you no more."

"Ould woman an' mother, both!" screamed the little hag, starting up and shaking her crutch at the brothers; "this is worse than all. You dirty an' insultin' spalpeens, how daar ye again, I say call me sich names? What for should I be decoratin' my fingers wid the red blossoms o' the Lusmore, if I was as ould as you say? Be off out o' this, or be this an' be that, I ruinate ye both wid a whack o' this wand o' mine!"

"Young leedy," said Roreen Shouragh, stepping up cap in hand at this juncture, and making the old hag an elaborately polite bow--"young, an' innocent, an' delightful creethur, p'r'aps you'd have the kindness to exercise that lily-white hand o' yours in pointin' out the way for us into Queen Cleena's palace!"

"Yes, young man," answered the crone, greatly mollified at the handsome address of Roreen. "For your sake, I'll point out the way. You at laste know the respect that should be paid to youth an' beauty!"

"Allow me, my sweet young darlint," said Roreen at this, as he stepped up and offered her his arm--"allow me to have the shuprame pleasure of conductin' you. I'm sure I must have the honor an' glory of ladin' on my arm one of the queen's maids of honor. May those enticin' cheeks o' yours for ever keep the bloomin' an' ravishin' blush they have at the present minnit, an' may those riglar ivory teeth o' yours, that are as white as the dhriven snow, never make their conjay from your purty an' delightful mouth!"

The "delightful young creethur" allowed herself, with many a gratified smirk, to be conducted downward by the gallant Roreen toward the rock, where, striking the naked wall with her crutch, or wand as she was pleased to call it, a door appeared before them, and the three brothers were immediately conducted into the presence of the fairy queen.

It would be long, but pleasant, to tell the gallant compliments paid by Roreen to the queen, and the queen's polite and gracious acceptance of them; merry to relate the covert laughter of the lovely maids of honor, as Roreen occasionally showered down praises on the head of the "young leedy" who so readily gained him admittance to the palace, and who was no other than the vain old nurse of the queen; but, despite all such frivolities, this history must have its course. At length the queen gave them a gentle hint that their audience had lasted the proper time, and as they were departing she cast her bright but love-lorn eyes upon them with a kindly look.

"Young man," she said, "you ask my advice how to act so as to gain wealth and renown. I could give you wealth, but will not, for wealth thus acquired rarely benefits the possessor. But I will give you the advice you seek. Always keep your senses sharp and bright, and your bodies strong by manly exercise. Look sharply round you, and avail yourselves honorably of every opportunity that presents itself. Be brave, and defend your rights justly; but, above all, let your hearts be full of honor and kindness, and show that kindness ever in aiding the poor, the needy, and the defenceless. Do all this, and I doubt not but you will yet come to wealth, happiness, and renown. Farewell!"